by Frank Schroth

This week’s meeting of the Conservation Commission has been cancelled. Cancelling a meeting would not be newsworthy were it not for their agenda which had 4 items related to 40B developments. They were going to discuss an application for demolition and an application for site development with regard to Hendries. Also related to that site was a discussion on the demolition of the town owned portion of Hendries. They were also going to resume  discussion of a site development application for 711 Randolph Avenue. The meeting was cancelled due to a member being out of town.

Yesterday’s Boston Globe magazine had a feature on the diversity of the populations of Massachusetts towns. You can find an interactive map here. Milton’s diversity score is 3.72% which is pretty high. By comparison Lynn’s score is 4.91 which places Lynn tenth in the state. This high score is likely a good thing. In a recent column in the New Yorker, James Surowiecki, the magazine’s business reporter writes:

It’s genuinely good for business, since a large body of evidence suggests that making organizations more diverse can also make them perform better. A recent McKinsey study found that the organizations with the most diverse executive teams had dramatically higher returns on equity and earnings performance than those with the least diverse teams.

As an editorial aside, we would note that Milton’s diversity and the benefits seem to be restricited to our school students. Promoting diversity in Milton’s boards and committees is something that could use a little work from all of us.

The Globe also had a recent feature on Milton resident Abigail Johnson who will be taking over the helm at Fidelity Investments.

Lastly the Globe had an article on light pollution. It discussed the concept of buildings being dark sky compliant. This is an issue that has come up a couple of times at recent meetings of the Planning Board. The article does not mention Milton but discusses what other towns are doing to regulate unwanted light. You can find it here.